Image by Michael LaRosa.
This spring, after a few confirmed wolf-related livestock kills in Cochise County, Arizona, some ranchers claimed unverified additional losses and pushed county officials to take drastic action. Backed by industry groups and emboldened by national political shifts, they called for the Mexican gray wolf to be stripped of its endangered status and for the recovery program to be defunded—part of a broader nationwide campaign to weaken the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
In response, the county board of supervisors is now considering a resolution that could support delisting the species or transferring its management to the state, both moves with potentially dire consequences for wolf recovery. Despite strong public opposition and many voices emphasizing coexistence and the ecological benefits of wolves, local officials appear more influenced by rhetoric about federal overreach.
This political theater has real, immediate consequences. On May 27, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, in coordination with the Arizona Game and Fish Department, removed two endangered Mexican gray wolves—known as Llave and Wonder—and their two pups from their den in southeastern Arizona. A third pup was euthanized at the den site. These wolves were removed following months of questionable depredation reports and a clear lack of good-faith efforts by livestock operators to coexist with carnivores.
There are now no wolves in Cochise County. And this fact is being celebrated by those pushing the false narrative that we cannot coexist with wolves.
Such power plays distort policy, intimidate decision-makers, and create a chilling effect on any meaningful enforcement of the ESA. These wolves were part of the most genetically valuable population in the recovery program. The removals were clearly aimed at appeasing livestock interests, even though the recovery of wolves is a broadly-valued federal mandate under the ESA. Why do the loudest and most extreme voices—those pushing misinformation and hostility—get outsized consideration over wildlife watchers, Indigenous leaders, scientists, and the majority of the public who support wolf recovery?
What’s unfolding in Cochise County is not just a local dispute—it’s a microcosm of a larger national movement that seeks to gut the very foundations of environmental law in the United States. When local officials echo talking points crafted by industry lobbyists and anti-government zealots, they help legitimize a coordinated assault on one of the most important wildlife protection laws in the world.
Today it’s wolves in Cochise. Tomorrow, it could be grizzlies in Montana, cougars in California, or sea turtles along the Gulf Coast. The same playbook—inflate fear, ignore science, and shift control to politically compliant state (and now county) agencies—is being used across the country to dismantle endangered species protections, one resolution at a time.
We should be alarmed by this push to dismantle federal environmental protections and return wildlife management to a system rigged for industry and extremism.
We need urgent reform at every level. With Brian Nesvik, a vocal critic of the ESA, likely at the helm of USFWS and Doug Burgum selling the Department of the Interior to the Department of Government Efficiency while the House pushes bills aimed at undermining the ESA, federal reform is a lost cause for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, emboldened, rogue counties think they can take their bigoted and twisted notion of justice into their own hands.
That leaves us to focus on building frontlines of defense at the state level. We must modernize wildlife governance, reflective of diverse values of the public, Indigenous nations, scientists, and the American majority who support wolf recovery. We need transparent, inclusive, and accountable decision-making grounded in justice and coexistence.
What we lack is not public will, but political courage.
We are at a fork in the road. Will we continue down a path shaped by fear, misinformation, and cruelty? Or will we choose a future rooted in science, compassion, and democratic values?
We can start here: the Cochise County board of supervisors plans to draft a resolution on the Mexican gray wolf that they will most likely approve at an upcoming meeting. Immediate public comments are needed. There is still the opportunity to make your voice heard, especially if you live in, have lived, visit, recreate, or participate in tourism in Cochise County.
Then, urge your state legislators and governor to stand up as courageous leaders in defense of all wildlife and democratic process. Courage is needed now more than ever.
